Hugh Howey - Molly Fyde and the Land of Light

Cole sighed for effect. “I would’ve been saying whatever you wanted me to say, Madame Fyde .”

Molly slapped at Cole’s shoulder playfully. “See? You sound just like them!”

“See why you never learned about this planet? You can’t stay focused. Typical—”

“You say anything gender-related, and my jabs are gonna turn into haymakers, buddy.”

Cole held up his hands in mock surrender. “Can I tell you why they can’t build out here?”

“I guess,” she said, her arms crossing in mock anger.

“It’s because there are two Drenard stars. They have overlapping cones of light the planet swings through.”

“So they have seasons?”

Cole laughed at this. “Yeah, I guess. Summer and Summ est .”

Molly rolled her eyes.

“It isn’t really seasons, not like we have. Dozens of our years go by before the two stars orbit each other and the planet lines up just right for the terminator to move. Then it’ll stay like that for dozens more years. There are probably Wadi shelters on the other side of the planet that you can’t get to right now ’cause they’re baking in the heat for another cycle.”

“Wow.” Molly turned and gazed through the window, thinking on these cycles. “How much you wanna bet,” she asked Cole, “that all the old species on this planet were migratory at some point?”

“I wouldn’t doubt it.”

“Any ideas about where that water came from in those caves you were in?”

“I haven’t had a chance to ask Dani about that. Probably condensation. If some of those tunnels go all the way to the cool side, you might get a convection current—”

“Look!” Molly interrupted.

It was the other shuttle, parked on a small rise and facing them, waiting. There was an armed Drenard male standing by the large vehicle, his tunics flapping in the breeze. He waved at their driver, who raised a hand in response. Their shuttle slowly pulled past the parked one and swerved to line up on the other side.

Molly watched the Circle Members lean together and converse in low tones. Edison had his head against his window, softly snoring, while Walter ran down the aisle toward the rear glass so he could get a better view of the recharging process. The guard outside waved their driver back until the flattened sterns of both vehicles were just a meter apart, lined up for the energy transfer.

“Should we step out and stretch our legs, see if we can help?” Cole asked.

“I’d rather stay inside,” Molly said. She watched Walter press his metallic face to the rear of the shuttle, peering down. Beyond him, through both sets of glass, she could see several shapes moving in the other vehicle.

“Besides,” she said, “something doesn’t feel—”

She was about to say right , just as things started to go very wrong.

Armed Drenard guards spilled out of the other shuttle and marched around toward theirs. One of the Circle members that had ridden with Molly’s bunch stood outside the door of their shuttle; he urged the soldiers forward, waving his blue arm frantically.

“Cole—”

“I see it.”

“Edison, wake up!”

Molly moved into the aisle and turned to the one armed guard they had on their side.

The guard raised his lance.

But not in the direction she’d hoped.

And Molly finally saw just how wrong things were about to get.

The world slowed down, coming to a halt like a Drenard day. Molly saw Dani yelling at the official with the red box in his lap. The third Circle Member stood in the aisle, facing Molly’s group with his hands wide, palms out. Their driver watched from the front of the shuttle, his lance parallel to the floor and pointed back their way.

Without bands, there was no way to ask anyone what was going on. Dani seemed furious about something. The other Questioner approached the front of the vehicle and the driver. Out of the corner of her eye, Molly could see the line of guards advancing up the side of their shuttle.

What a perfect plan , she thought. The Circle members had sent Dani’s contingent of guards in one direction while they led them, defenseless, into a trap in the middle of nowhere. Before she could fully admire the scheming involved, the world around her burst back into motion. A cacophony of soothing sounds—Drenards arguing in their cooing tongue—rang out. Behind her, Molly could hear a fierce and throaty roar.

“Easy, Edison,” she heard Cole say.

Spinning in the aisle, she saw Cole, bent over the back of his seat, trying to keep Edison restrained. Walter remained by the back glass, but he was looking forward, trying to hiss something.

He pointed, his arm quivering, at Molly.

Or past her.

She whirled around just as the driver’s lance arced out, cutting Walter’s Questioner in two. The upper half of the Drenard’s body kept going forward, arms flailing, while the lower half kicked back between the rows of seats. Both halves trailed ropes of gore, glistening wet with blood.

Molly’s eyes burned from the bright flash. She felt someone grabbing her around her neck and looked down to see a blue arm across her chest.

Through the haze, she watched Cole leap forward, wide-eyed and wild looking. Molly tried to tell him to not try anything, but in slow motion he and Edison started moving over the seats to launch a suicidal attack on the front of the bus. The Circle Member that had Molly pinned began dragging her to the front, cooing something in her ear.

Her back was toward the danger: the guard in the front of the bus. She tried to wiggle around to see what he was doing, but the best she could manage was to look sideways. Her captor dragged her past Dani, who remained frozen in his seat, his arms up in the universal stance of submission. His eyes locked with Molly’s as she was pulled by. Then she saw him glance down at something—something ahead of him. It came into view as she was pulled closer to the front of the shuttle.

The red box.

The third Circle Member clutched it with one hand; his other one held a small device leveled at Dani, a gun of some sort.

Molly reached up and grabbed the arms holding her across her chest. She gripped them as she tightened her stomach muscles, pulling her knees to her chin, her feet high off the ground. The Circle Member started pulling her forward faster now; she was almost out of range before she had time to act.

She lashed out with both feet, aiming for that frustrating clasp. The kick drove the red box into the abdomen of the Circle Member.

The air rushed out of the elder Drenard.

And something else rushed out of the box.

The Wadi Thooo was free!

She shot from her prison and under a ledge of some sort, looking for a dark place. The air was full of scents. Many of them. More than she had ever smelled in close proximity. Some were tendrils of fear, leading back to their source as vividly as colored columns of smoke. Other smells were bright arms of rage and deceit, smells the female Wadi knew well. Male smells. Powerful odors from big Wadi. But she’d fought plenty of large Wadi in her day. The males of her kind might grow large with age, but the females grew wise .

And she was older than she looked in those ways.

She kept her moisture tongue tucked in its pouch and flicked her scent tongue in wide patterns through the air. There was another smell here, fainter than the others, and new. Not as primal and dominant as those she’d known for so many cycles of the two lights.

It was the good smell. A trace of kindness floating in the air, thin as a single ray of light and surrounded by all that reeking blackness given off by fear and rage.